Investor Pitch Deck - Series A

There are lots of great posts and articles of Pitch Deck's and how to interact with VCs to raise your Series A round. So we thought we'd compile some of the best resources here. We've split the list between Real life examples and general Articles and Templates.

Real life examples

• LinkedIn: Reid Hoffman released his Series A pitchdeck for LinkedIn, as used in 2004. He's also set out his thoughts behind each slide, and main considerations.
• Seo Moz: as usual, Rand Fishkin is very generous with sharing the inner workings of (SEO) Moz - and here is his Series A deck along with thoughts on the broader fundraising process
• AirBnB: we like its brevity
• Mint.com: very clear value proposition to customers
• Square: demonstrates that the most successful companies don't need to have the prettiest slide decks
• Foursquare: perhaps too much emphasis on product and not enough on traction. But should still be taken seriously
• ZenPayroll: clean, concise structure

Articles and Templates

• An excellent template and guide with overview by Canaan Partners
• Ryan Spoon of Polaris Ventures shares a very good framework for a Series A deck
• Tim Young of About.me shares a template he used to raise $10M across 2 companies in a year
• Rob Go of Nextview Ventures sets out his thoughts on making your approach to VCs and two pitch deck templates
• One Match Ventures has a very through template, with a list of things you may want to include on each slide
• Dave McClure of 500 Startups with his usually robust approach and 10 slide template (we went with the redesigned deck - much easier on the eye...
• Chance Barnett of Crowfunder shares his thought and provides a downloadable powerpoint guide

Final Thought

After flicking through some of these, you'll quickly get some inspiration, and hopefully the typical structure:

• Length: aim for 10 pages or less
• Be succinct: but well prepared: so you can talk through the detail, not write it on the slide
• Be balanced: cover each aspect of your startup. The VC will notice if you omit an area - e.g. competition, and ask you for this anyway